Homesickness

On the 24^th, we celebrated one year together as a family of four! We have been so blessed with our sweet and sassy “O”! She loves Dora and Elsa and Anna. She has the most amazing curls. She talks and talks and talks- especially at dinner time. She is so funny. She always surprises us with the silly things she says. She is a ham. She has perfected 100 faces to make a crowd fall in love with her. She has never met a stranger. She wants princess hair (pig tails, a pony tail, or bun) every day, but would much rather put something on her head like pajama pants so she can have “long hair” to toss around. She goes through at least 4 princess dress up dresses a day and has an obsession with those clickity clackity play high heels. She says, “Charlie I love you” a million times a day- about as much as she says, “Charlie, I am never playing with you again!!!” She gives the best hugs. We thank God for allowing us to parent her!   

But…..

As I read over all that I wrote about our sweet girl, how can I have a “but…,” but I do. I am so content with our family and what a blessing it is, but I have really been struggling lately with being content with our current circumstances. We have jumped over so many hurdles in the adoption process and we have gained a lot of ground, but the finish line is still out of sight and I am getting tired.  And I still can’t even post a picture of her or write out her first name!

One of the main struggles is that I am a planner. Planning eases my anxiety. If I can plan for it, I won’t usually worry about it. Until now, the adoption process has not really interfered with our plans (except moving to Mbingo, but we had already been working there so it wasn’t so far out of the realm of what I had envisioned for our family). But we were planning on returning to the States this summer so that Charlie could start school in the Fall, but now it looks like the adoption process could take another 8 months or so or maybe less, but probably not and maybe even longer. The not knowing is killing me. I desperately want to know when we can go home so I can plan. Also, I am just ready to go home.

I am struggling with homesickness at the moment. Most of my socks have holes in them. The holes have probably been there a long time, but when I am in the throws of homesickness, little things like holes in my socks make me angry. “If I was just home, I would throw them away and buy more at Wal-mart!,” I huff. Don’t worry about my cold toes, it is really not that big of a deal. The socks are just a symptom and not the only one.

We have been in Cameroon for more than two years. This is the longest uninterrupted time that we have been away. On our last term, we went home for a few months after we evacuated. Thankfully we have not had to evacuate unexpectedly this term, but we also have not had any trips home or out of Cameroon. Our term was supposed to be two years long and we had already planned to extend a few months to better accommodate the school year. Now our two-year term is looking to be closer to three years. I had not prepared my head, heart, or sock supply for three years!

I also had not prepared myself to be away from family and friends so long. Three years is a long time to be away from loved ones. So much changes. Friends have had babies, loved ones have passed away, children have grown… and we have missed it all. And they have missed the changes in our lives as well. Charlie is not the same little girl she was when we left, now she is a “big girl.” She has learned to read and ride a bike since we’ve been gone. And O! She has never met her grandparents or Aunts and Uncles or cousins. There is something so sad about not being able to share your child with the ones you love and vice versa.

Homesickness seems like it has such an easy cure- go home! But here is another major struggling point for me: I feel trapped! We cannot leave the country unless we want to leave O behind. We cannot go home. This feels claustrophobic, especially as tensions in Cameroon continue to simmer. This then triggers emotions from when we did have to evacuate CAR on our last term. If things in the country really took a turn for the worse, what would we do?

If you have read this far and managed to wade through all of the emotional muck that I have thrown out in this long blog, thank you. Thank you so much for your love, support, and prayers. Thank you for letting me be honest. I didn’t want to write this blog- to put all of my ugly out there for everyone to see, but the life of a missionary is not all singing kumbaya and Billy Graham crusades. Some days (seasons) are hard and that is where I find myself now. Recently, the Rend Collective song, “True North” has become my anthem and prayer. It is so easy to let homesickness take me off course or as the song says, “let my circumstances become my compass.” I would really appreciate your prayers that I would continue to seek Christ as my “True North” for I know He will guide me on the path.

Here are the lyrics to "True North"

Oh, You are my true north

Oh, you are my true north
Iwill follow You into the dark, dark, dark (woo)
I will follow You with all my heart, heart, heart (one, two, three, c'mon)

Oh, oh, oh, oh

I will not let the darkness steal the joy within my soul
I will not let my circumstance become my compass, no
I will not let the fears of life and sorrows of this world
Dictate to me how I should feel
For You are my true north

Oh, You are my true north
Oh, You are my true north

Oh, oh, oh, oh

I will not let my failures turn into the curse of shame
I will not walk beneath the clouds that taunt me and condemn
For I will stand on solid ground the shadow of Your love
Forgiven, changed, a heart renamed
For You are my true north, everybody sing

Oh, You are my true north
Oh,…

Or if you want to hear the song:

The Last SCA

We just got back from two weeks at Charlie’s homeschool co-op called Sonlight Christian Academy. SCA has been such a blessing to our kids and to the other missionary kids involved.

On the opening night, the children presented a presentation they prepared. Charlie hates being in the spotlight, but she did great as she demonstrated how the lungs works using a model she made out of a coke bottle, straws, and balloons. She loves science!

The kids got an opportunity to have a more typical school experience than they get at home- sitting in desks being taught by someone other than their mothers.

They also got to study subjects not taught everyday in homeschool. This session the kids learned all about shoes! Charlie loved it! She informed me that I should not wear high heels or I might get “hammer toe” and that she could not wear flip flops anymore because she needs better “arch support”!

They also had swimming lessons almost every day (one day they did Crossfit instead!). Charlie said swimming was her favorite part!

They performed a play! The older kids did “The Elves and the Shoemaker” and the little kids did a play about jungle animals finding a shoe and not knowing what it was. Charlie was a cute little monkey and she mostly remembered all of her lines!

 They also had art class. The highlight was making shoes they could wear out of duct tape!

When they weren’t in class, the kids played and played!

 The parents also got to play lots of games, have times of worship, and we even threw a party for Elsie the director of the SCA program as she is moving on to a different ministry opportunity. Look at the cake we made for her (she loves Settlers of Catan)!

SCA is something both Charlie and I have looked forward to over the past two years. Unfortunately this was our last SCA as the number of students has dwindled and there is no longer a director. Maybe in the future SCA will be revamped. If we are still in Cameroon at the start of the next school year, we will likely join another homeschool co-op in Yaoundé, but it will be hard for it to live up to our beloved SCA!